An Iranian nuclear official denied a statement by a Tehran parliamentarian on Saturday that the country had begun installing 3,000 new atomic centrifuges for uranium enrichment — a process that can make atomic bombs.Hossein Simorgh, the head of public affairs at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted by IRNA news agency as saying no such new devices had been fitted at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, had earlier been quoted as saying Iran had started installing the centrifuges, used to make fuel for power stations or material for atomic bombs. ... http://abcnews.go.com

It had all the makings of a country song: an escaped prisoner, his terminally ill mother, a Wal-Mart truck, NASCAR and a Nashville singer's tour bus.Christopher Daniel Gay, 32, was arrested around 11 p.m. Friday at the Daytona International Speedway where he had been watching a race, said Lt. Patrick Myers, spokesman for Daytona Beach Police. Gay escaped from a prisoner transport van Sunday in South Carolina, police said, and he evaded a five-state manhunt by stealing a pickup, a big rig and a bus that belongs to singer Crystal Gayle. No one was reported injured while Gay was on the loose.Initially, police said, his motive for fleeing was simple. "I take it he was just trying to see his mom," said Michael Douglas, the police chief in Pleasant View, Tennessee, near the home where Gay's mother is dying of cancer....http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/27/escapee.mom.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us

A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff. For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers. No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation - under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public. The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was seen as more susceptible to control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly described. Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun - a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago....http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fapnews.myway.com%2Farticle%2F20070127%2FD8MTOPK00.html

The 18 EU countries that have ratified the bloc's draft constitution have urged the nine other members to help revive the entire beleaguered document. Representatives of the states, meeting in Spain, called for the other nine members not to scrap the constitution but to help build on it. The UK, Czech Republic and Poland want the constitution replaced by a new, slimmed-down mini-treaty. French and Dutch voters rejected the constitution in referendums in 2005. Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told the meeting in Madrid the constitution was "a magnificent document" that should be "complemented rather than carved up". "Is the only way out of the constitutional impasse the wholesale dismantling of the constitutional treaty? By cutting it into little pieces?" he asked. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6300231.stm

Thousands of anti-war protesters, energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the war in Iraq, were demanding a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday featuring a handful of celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon."We see many things that we feel helpless about," said Barbara Struna, 59, of Brewster, Massachusetts. "But this is like a united force. This is something I can do."Struna, a mother of five who runs an art gallery, made a two-day bus trip with her 17-year-old daughter, Anna, to the nation's capital to represent what she said was middle America's opposition to President Bush's war policy.Her daughter, a high school senior, said she has as many as 20 friends who have been to Iraq. "My generation is the one that is going to have to pay for this," she said....http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/27/iraq.protest.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us

At least 15 people have been killed and 55 injured in twin suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad. The bombs exploded in quick succession near a market in the mainly Shia New Baghdad district, in the east of the city, Iraqi police sources say. There has been a string of attacks on markets. The worst killed 88 people. The attacks come despite the arrival last week of the first of more than 21,000 extra US troops intended to bring an end to sectarian violence. In other violence on Saturday: Iraqi police said eight computer firm employees were kidnapped by men in police uniforms in central Baghdad The US military said it had killed 14 suspected insurgents during an air strike on a building used as a hideout south of Baquba...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6305037.stm